A Bailout For The Middle Class

All this talk about "what McCain should do" is growing increasingly academic - he'll keep doing what he's doing, and even if he did something else events are in the saddle now - but it's still worth quoting Sebastian Mallaby:

How should government demonstrate concern for regular people? John McCain's plan to refinance mortgages shows that he has the right impulse, but this is not the best approach. Rearranging home loans one by one would be a slow process when what's needed is quick action. It would be almost impossible to rearrange the loans fairly: Prudent home buyers who have kept up with their payments might lose out to imprudent ones who stretched too far; folks who rented while saving for a home would get nothing. Besides, McCain's plan could exacerbate the financial crisis in a perverse way. Help for families who are behind in their mortgage payments could encourage others to stop paying, too, in which case loans that are now good would quickly turn rotten.

The fastest and fairest way to help ordinary people is via a budget stimulus package. Part of the extra spending should be distributed to state governments, which are having trouble maintaining Medicaid and other programs as recession eats into their tax revenue. Part of the extra spending could go to infrastructure projects, though this tends to be a slow way of getting cash into the economy. But much of the stimulus should be in checks made out directly to citizens. Wall Street is getting its bailout. Main Street deserves one also.

Once upon a time, conservatives won elections by promising to give middle-class America back its tax dollars. In the teeth of a recession, staring defeat in the face, that's a far better message to run on than earmarks, or energy independence, or William Ayers.